The Walk to the Grave
by Di-Bee
Summary: Cameron Mitchell's look over the walk to the grave of a man he barely knew. How Jack O'Neill's death affected his SG family, more particularly Sam, and Daniel. Sam/Jack. Warning : Major Character Death! Drama/Romance


Title : The walk to the grave

Author : DiBee

Summary : Cameron Mitchell's look over the walk to the grave of a man he barely knew. How Jack O'Neill's death affected his SG family, more particularly Sam, and Daniel. Sam/Jack. Warning : Major Character Death! Drama/Romance

Rating : T

Disclaimer : The characters belong to their rightful owners, no copyright infringement intended...

Author Note : Blame the mood on Passionate Cec', who is also to thank for the support while writing that piece of drama. Her and her bunny, in fact.

They are standing at attention. Teal'c is standing tall, and there is nearly no difference. Vala is trying to make herself as invisible as she could, and she is doing quite well considering her usual behavior. Daniel is fed up with the world, and his world revolves a lot around the nervous woman by his side at the moment.

There is nothing any of them can do. Cameron sighs silently, trying hard not to look over to Sam, not to see her devastated features, or her constant look toward a weeping Cassie in the background. He tries not to think about how hard it must be for her, for them.

He knows, he has known for a long time, he supposes, that there was more between Carter and her former commanding officer than what they had usually let out. He was not just a superior, not just a friend, and had nothing of a brother. Yet, there was no clear boundaries either, but he was not her lover, despite their shared feelings.

But now, he is gone. After nearly a decade of risking his life everyday in Stargate missions, and all those he does not even know about before that, he had to be killed in a bombing in the Pentagon.

And he knows Sam has to reproach herself for that. For every single steps he has taken without her that day, because she was at the head of his security detail for that important meeting of his, and had not seen the attack coming. She had been hurt, too, the sling on her shoulder, more than a week after the 'accident' testifies of how close she had been to dying there, with him.

She had spent the last week in the hospital, her friends visiting, most of them presenting their condolences in more or less words. She had not said anything, but her fix stare and her shaking hands were telling enough. Nothing would relieve the pain, nor how much she was blaming herself for what had happened.

As far as he knew, she had not spoken with any 'competent' authority as of today. And for all he knew, no authority was competent to judge her ability to detect an undetectable Naquaddah bomb, that no dog, machine, or alien could have spotted being beamed in the middle of the room, way too late for anyone to stop it. She had dived, over him, but it had not been enough. He had heard the rare people who had gotten out of there alive talk about it, and for all he knew, she should have died with him. He even suspected it was the plan all along, ever since their eyes had met with 'that' knowledge. Die on the front line, fighting.

How an alien, and enemy ship had gotten that far without their knowing was not her responsibility, and as far as he was concerned, he would have personally yelled after all those men and women who had, presumably, not done their job.

But Carter was blaming herself, and she knew what living, and working under pressure did to people, especially in this program. Moreover, she had formed more of those people than she was willing to admit, and was probably blaming herself further for that.

He had not heard Daniel talk about it, but he had heard Teal'c ask, discreetly, if Jack could have ascended... He was not sure it would have been for the best, but it would have meant it would not really have been the end, and there was sort of another chance, for him, for Carter, for Cassie, for Daniel, and for the entire program, to get past the closed coffin they were now lifting. It would not be opened at any point during the ceremony. The bomb had damaged him beyond repair, and no makeup artist could restore that.

Sam was in front of him, her hand so tight around the handle he wondered if the knuckles really could handle such pressure. He also wondered how long she had spent threatening her doctors for them to let her out, and let her do what she considered her duty.

He could not see her face, but he knew she was not crying. She was beyond that. He also knew that Daniel, on the other side of the coffin, was walking through tears, of sadness and rage. Not directed at Sam, but at the world itself and all he could reproach to the unfairness of all the deaths they had come to face during their missions for the Stargate program.

He, Cameron Mitchell, was an outsider. In a way, he had never truly been part of the team. He could only see all those people he had learned to respect, appreciate, trust destroy themselves, and there was nothing he could do but make sure to support the weight of the coffin a little more, as did Teal'c, so that Sam's shoulder wouldn't hurt so much she would pass out, or Daniel collapse under the combine weight of losing a friend, and feeling the 'weight' of his departure on his shoulder.

The archeologist had himself been 'buried' too many times not to understand what it felt like, but it being Jack made it different. He was family. From where he was, he could hear Cassie's sobs in the background, and he could nearly feel Carter's shoulders slump at each small sound. Jack had been like a father to the young woman. She had lost her family a first time, then her mother, him a couple times, too, and now Jack. He knew for a fact that having each other would not help Sam and Cassie to cope with their loss. The two women were beyond that, and despite Sam knowing what it felt to lose a father, it would not be enough. There was no words, no gestures any of them could accomplish to ease the pain.

There had been words, though. Carter's faint, and yet moving voice had silenced them all. Her words had moved colleagues as much as friends of the man she was paying her respects to, everyone ignoring the tears on their faces, acting as if they couldn't see their neighbors eyes obeying the silent order the woman facing them was giving to let the last gate go. If the situation had not been as tragic as it had, Mitchell would pretty much had snorted at the bad floodgate pun coming to mind.

At some point during her speech, he had thought Sam was not going to make it. He had felt Daniel tense by his side, and knew if anyone was to go and help her, it would have been the grieving archeologist, but she had taken a deeper breath, barely cringed at the feel of her shoulder resenting the simple act of breathing, and carried on. She was a good soldier, trained to face the worst, and it seemed like it was all that remained of the woman they had once known once she was done speaking.

He had seen people nodding at her, patting her uninjured shoulder discreetly, just sharing a look, and he had felt like he was missing something. Could there have been more to the woman he thought he knew than the working/friend relationship with her former CO, after all? Have they gotten past the regulations, and gave way to the happiness they had been refusing themselves for years, as Daniel usually said. Well, usually, as often as he talked about it, so maybe once every small eternity.

Then he saw it, and felt like he had just been rolled over by a very long, very cold, and very heavy truck. The ring at her finger. It was not even an engagement ring, it was a wedding band. She was walking in front of him, supporting her husband's coffin, not even allowed to say the words as she was in her dress blues, and, technically, so was he. Cameron closed his eyes, his feet still doing their things even if he felt like someone had just given him a blow in both his knees. That could not be right.

He was nearly surprised as he began to feel tears on his own face, his heart aching for his friend and former colleague, wondering if there was an after to this kind of event. He remembered her, a while ago, half joking about her "Black Widow Curse". He was pretty sure no one would ever dare mentioning it to her now. She was a blue widow, a brave soldier as well as a military wife. But above all, she was a woman in pain. They must have waited so long, to finally get just a peak of what life could be like, before it had all been taken away from them again, for good this time.

For an instant, Mitchell wondered why she had not spilled it, openly talking as his wife, then he remarked another detail, something he should not have been checking in their position, something he should have noticed before. Something, he realized, which must have been the only reason for her to fight the will to join him, sap her career or end up court-martialed. Sam Carter had always been overworking herself, and he had seen her skip meals with more assiduity than Daniel, no matter how interesting his artifacts. He knew for a fact her mission on the Hammond would certainly not have had her gaining any weight, either. So there was only one reason for her uniform to look the way it did on her.

Cameron felt the sudden urge to hug her, slap Daniel behind the head to make him realize as well, get Cassie, Teal'c, and protect Sam from as much pain, people and self-blame as they could before being outnumbered. She should not have had to go through this. Not her, of all people. Not on her own, as she nearly had been all day.

Well, she would not really be on her own. He would never really be gone either. But somewhere, deep inside, Cameron was not so sure it was any better. The grave could damn well have had her name on it already.


End file.
